Postville looking to hydroponics for winter veggies

Some people in the small community of Postville on the north coast of Labrador are hoping fresh and local vegetables could be available even in the dead of winter this year.

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Enactus, a group of business students from Memorial University,came up with an idea to supply people in isolated communities with hydroponic kits that can grow vegetables year round. They visitedPostville this week to give a seminar about ProjectSucSeedand deliver the first hydroponic kit.

"We had 17 people express interest completely," Ruth Jacque, who works for the Inuit Community Government, told the CBC. A pretty large number for the small community.

Jacque is receiving the first kitand is looking forward to using it through the winter months. Her first crop will be kale.

"The winter is so long and bleak and cold. To see the greenery and to have something growing besides a little fern or something in your house," she said.

"To be able to to pick it and eat it and say 'I actually grew this myself' gives you a great touch with nature and a feeling like you're part of the ecosystem and everything."

Alternative to flying in food

The kits look a lot like a large rubbermaid container.

Tyler Edmunds, Ordinary Member for Postville for the Nunatsiavut Government, also came to the workshop to check out the system.

"It definitely looks like a great way to overcome a lot of the obstacles we have in northern Labrador when it comes to growing produce," Edmunds said,

"Our availability of produce is limited to one or two opportunities during a week. We don't have a truck coming in every so often with fresh produce, it comes in on a Twin Otter [plane]."

Edmunds saidhe likes the idea for the community, but also for himself.

"I definitely would like to get one," hesaid,

"It seems very simple and a great way to get people involved into growing their own fruits and their own vegetables and whatever else."

Healthier economy too

The units are made by disadvantaged youth in St. John's and have been circulated to a number of communities on the island, in Atlantic Canada and Nunavut.

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Postville is the second community on the north coast of Labrador to receive the Hydroponic boxes.

In Rigolet they have created a co-op. Growers there will have the opportunity to sell to the local Northern Store.

"That way they can provide for the community. Hopefully, we'll get more people that are interested in it as well and they'll want to do the same thing, or people will just grow themselves and just keep if for themselves." said Heather O'Keefe,production leader of Project SucSeed.

"We don't have a truck coming in every so often with fresh produce, it comes in on a Twin Otter.'- Tyler Edmunds

Tyler Edmunds saidusinghydroponics locally would make for a healthier product and perhaps help to bring the price down.

"I think it's cost effective not just for the grower here but I think it will be cost effective for the purchasers as well," Edmunds said.

"Produce has to travel long distances, there's costs associated with that transport. If we're able to grow the produce locally, pass it right to the store's hands, obviouslywe're taking a big variable out of the equation here and hopefully that will drive the cost of produce down."